Konductra review

If only having your heart in the right place would be enough...

Pros

Intense multiplayer

Lots of modes and levels

Somewhat compliments Tetris

Cons

Frustrating control hiccups

No new tricks to conquer levels

Repetitive music

With top-notch titles like Lumines, Gunpey, Every Extend Extra and Meteos, handhelds are becoming a puzzle lover’s dream. Konductra shows similar promise, but unfortunately gets caught in its own mess.

Konductra’s premise isn’t entirely new - it's similar to Othello with a different motive, or Tetris played on a tray instead of in a column. The playfield is a horizontal grid, and every few seconds, you must place a Siamese pair of colored blocks somewhere on the grid. Black and white "conductor" end pieces lie all around the edges of the playfield, and enable you to charge up and destroy all touching blocks of the same color as long as you’re able to connect the "final" block in the line to another end piece of the same color. Once that's done, you hit the switch and the conductor fricassees the blocks.

More Info

Genre

Strategy

Description

This puzzler is fun for the right reasons, but also frustrating for the wrong reasons. We're hoping a sequel can really improve on its premise.